Spoiler, cliquez ici pour afficher le texteWas the Cuddy sex a fantasy? Was Cameron and Chase’s wedding real? We asked House executive producer David Shore to answer our burning questions about the finale.

After House’s detox and the Huddy sex turned out to be his fantasies, what was real in the episode? The Chase/Cameron wedding? The conversations with Wilson?There has been some speculation about this, but we weren’t trying to pull any fast ones on the viewers. Every scene that House wasn’t in was real. But even the stuff that House was in was real—it was just his perception of the lipstick/pills that was distorted. And there was no detox or sex.

Will House really get sober this time?He’s certainly going to purse that. We want to treat this seriously and we want to go down that road.

Why did he enter a psychiatric institution rather than rehab?The problems are deeper than just the drugs, which are obviously an essential element of it. The fact is he used plenty of Vicodin before, but until Kutner’s death, on top of Amber’s death, he was somehow able to cope with it. He knows he needs to be locked up somewhere or it’s just not going to work. He realizes he has a problem and he has to do something about it. How that will manifest itself is what next season is all about.

What’s the future for a Cuddy/House romantic relationship?Initally, there are bigger issues on the table, but it would be dishonest to just let that disappear. Obviously House has feelings for her. Even though the love affair didn’t happen, in House’s mind it did.

Will House be back at work when the season begins?No. We want to deal with this in as realistic way as possible. We are going to be with House, but it’s not going to be at Princeton-Plainsboro. We want to take it through the process that House is going through.

How will House’s group at work function without his presence?It’s always nice to pull the central cog out of something and see what happens. How Foreman and Thirteen react; how Cameron and Chase react. Those are all the things that will make this fun.

Dr. Gregory House is such a vitriolic, antisocial lead character that it is hard to believe he has become a welcome guest in American homes. The inimitable Hugh Laurie and the creative team of House will explore why bad bedside manners makes good television, even after more than one hundred episodes. The panelists will screen an exemplary episode, and then examine how they continue to invigorate their irreverent medical series with mysterious diseases and dysfunctional working relationships.

7:15 PM - Welcome to tonight's mini-Paleyfest! It looks like they're running a little late. And it looks like there won't be a legacy clip!

7:20 PM - Our old friend Craig Hitchcock is here to intro tonight's moderator: The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond. He turn informs us we'll be seeing a brief clip package from the show's last few episodes this season.

7:35 PM - Ray asks about House's trip to the loony bin at the end of this season. "It's all drawn heavily on my personal life," Hugh quips.

7:37 PM - "I was actually a little worried," Shore says about the show's initial pitch. "When we pitched it we pitched it primarily as a procedural and the character, the crop of characters was not really what the focus of the pitch was." Katie adds, "The notion we had was what if we told a medical show as a mystery where the suspects were the symptoms. And at the head of that was the doctor, what they really say after the patients leave."

7:39 PM - Ray wonders which accent Hugh is faking, the one we're hearing now or the one on the show. "I'm faking the one on the show," Hugh says. "As you very well know, you minx!" He goes to note he was filming "Flight of the Phoenix" in Namibia when he shot his audition tape. "I made this tape with the help of some other actors. Jacob Vargas was operating the camera, never got credit for it, and Scott Campbell was reading [Wilson's part]. And at the end, [when] I did this tape I was actually going to get drunk. And they were impatient to get on with it so they only let me do it once. And I did it and I remember as they were packing up the camera I said, 'What did you think of the accent?' And Jacob said, 'What accent?' And I said, 'The American accent.' And he said, 'Oh you were doing American.'"

7:41 PM - Hugh also confesses he thought Wilson's character was the lead, which he also read for. "I didn't put much work into the Wilson [character]," Hugh admits. "Why would you?" Sean quips. "It really acts itself doesn't it?" Hugh adds. "The character's description was a handsome, boyish face, a handsome, open face or something like that. And I thought well that's plainly not for me. So I didn't exert myself very hard in that role."

7:42 PM - "I confess to not reading the entire pilot before sitting down [for the table read]," Sean admits. "When it's not cancer I have a short week."

7:43 PM - Omar on working with Hugh: "He's an incredible artist and set the bar pretty damn high there buddy."

7:45 PM - Greg on directing the show: "One of the great things about this show as opposed to some of the other shows I've worked on is there is a sense of community and there's a sense of support where everybody is looking after everybody and is 100% there when they're off-camera for someone else's dialogue... and one of the things that I love is, that attracted me to come here for this season, was that in episode 100 and something everybody's still striving to make it as fresh and original as the first day that they were at the table."

7:46 PM - Ray asks why the season premiere will pick up shortly after the finale wrapped instead of the usual three month or so gap. "We don't want to shake things up for the sake of shaking things up," David says. "We just want to keep exploring this character... we're just seeing where his life progresses and where it goes. And the end of last year obviously we did something that felt natural and real to me but is very extreme and we want to be as true to that as we can and follow up on that. So we are doing, Katie's going to be directing a two-hour season premiere, which is basically a movie which basically follows House through that institution. And it takes place over a much longer period of time than we're used to. And [it's about] his life in there, his search for getting better."

7:48 PM - Ray praises the show's smart, cable sensibility and how it still leads to huge ratings. "Imagine how good it would do if we dumbed it down?" David jokes. "We just do a show we all like and a lot of people seem to like it and that's really gratifying. And that's the extent of the analysis of that for me. I am amazed that it does as well as it does and I find that very gratifying... The audience is smarter than certainly the networks give them credit for or even sometimes I give them credit for." Hugh deadpans, "People are great."

7:50 PM - David admits that they really don't get many notes from the network at this point in the show's run. "They've got shows in their first year that they're worried about and they want to screw up," he jokes, adding that FOX has been nothing but supportive. "They gave us the plump 'American Idol' post slot for several years... and I want it back."

7:53 PM - Hugh shares more of the show's origins: "[Early on] it wasn't actually called 'House,' they didn't have a title for it at all. I remember Bryan Singer actually saying, 'You know, the show is pretty much about this guy House,' like that was sort of this great discovery. And it was. It hadn't been packaged or sold that way." Katie tells Hugh, "It's really interesting because I remember telling you that [House] was going to be the title and you were like, 'No, don't call it that!'"

7:55 PM - David on the origins of the names House and Wilson: "It was just a little tip of my cap to Holmes, Sherlock Holmes. House and Wilson versus Holmes and Watson."

7:57 PM - Sean on the show's success: "For us, all we know is driving into the lot and parking and getting out and having coffee and talking and working with everyone to try and make good and going home. That is the show... I'd want to hang out with us. Everyone there is smart and funny and kind and determined to good work and I don't think that's happened on another job. It's a real blessing."

7:59 PM - Hugh on what it was like to make out with Lisa: "There's a bunch of people around with cameras... if you were trying to seduce someone you wouldn't set that up as a romantic aid. It's unnatural, it's a strange, peculiar situation and yet the blessing of it is that everyone can acknowledge that. It's not as if you're alone finding, 'I find this a little odd!' Of course it's odd!" Lisa fires back: "If someone was trying to seduce me, yes I would have them set up cameras."

8:02 PM - Ray asks about when the Cuddy/House ball started rolling. "Very early on," David says. "No matter what we wrote, the two of them had this odd sexual tension. And that's been something we've been nurturing and trying to explore from day one." As for their imaginary hook-up: "I think it was significant even though it turned out not to be real. It was very significant - we got an insight into House's subconscious."

8:04 PM - Hugh on the show's current storyline: "I'm often asked... whether I, what I think should happen to House or what do I hope will happen. I don't really mind what it is, I only care about the how. That's my concern, that's my job in a way to worry about the how, not the what. Good ideas or good stories. In my mind it's all the execution, it's all how the script is written not what [happens]. If House becomes a transvestite, I don't really mind what it is as long as [they] do it well. I know for a fact lots and lots of people can write a good idea and I would much rather do a bad idea written by David Shore." David responds that he's given him so many bad ones.

8:08 PM - "I love point of view," Katie says about the show's directors. "I get very angry if - and this no longer happens - if we have to create point of view in the editing rom. You know, too often, and I think it's actually a old-school idea, audiences are so smart and savvy - they turn on the TV and they expect to see the same thing, the same level of quality... that requires a point of view. I think in the 'Dallas' or 'Dynasty' days it was sort of, you cover every actor in a wide shot, medium shot, close-up and then you're sort of out. But I think the fun is, the audience knows that there's going to be this medical mystery. They don't know how it's going to be told... so if you can bring a different perspective, and that starts at casting and all the way through music."

8:11 PM - Hugh on the sometimes hectic filming process: "We're [supposed] to do an episode every eight days. We actually [take] eight, nine or 10 days. We start a new one every eight days. Ah ha! How that works is we have days where we are shooting two episodes at once and it [puts pressure] on every department. You've got to have six cameras all of a sudden, where do they come from? I have no idea. But it is logistically incredibly complex... different sets, different stages, different casts."

8:12 PM - "And that's where it really is different from a network show to a cable show," Katie adds. "The reason why we have to be getting new episodes every eight days is we have air dates. And we have a lot of air dates. And not 13 or 10. So it's a very, very different venture from a workload standpoint. And a storytelling standpoint." Hugh deadpans: "We are superhuman." David goes on to add they didn't have a hiatus between seasons 4 and 5 due to the strike.

8:14 PM - Hugh on the show's script process: "I sometimes think it's a bit like an old house where there's many layers of paint that have been applied to a wooden window. Because I sometimes find myself, I'll ask a writer a question - 'Why doesn't House [do this]?' They'll say, 'Well, we had a line about that once.' And then I'll go, 'Oh, okay.' If I want, they'll give me an explanation about why he didn't pursue it or why they didn't pursue it. And then I will do the same thing [again], 'What about this here?' 'We tried that.' And so there's many, many layers, you become aware of all the layers of paint that have built up as you chip away with a knife... which I would do at your house, if you'd let me."

8:16 PM - David on his first gig: "Paul Haggis gave me my first staff writing job. And he told me the typical season is 24 episodes and eight of them you'll love, eight of them you'll go 'eh' and eight of them you'll hate. I think I'm way ahead of that. I really like what we've all done with this thing." He later jokes, "So Haggis is a hack! He can't even get a job in television anymore."

8:19 PM - Audience Q&A time. Someone asks about casting Hugh. "I loved [Hugh's shows]," David says. "I did watch them as a kid. And when I heard he was coming in or putting stuff on tape I was very excited about it. I thought it would be fantastic to meet him. I didn't think for a moment he could do the part... I had no idea he [could] act."

8:21 PM - The youngest fan in the room asks which scene was the grossest for Hugh. He says the episode where he pulled out the girl's intestines during a hallucination. "Most of the time you're doing things that you know are not real - blood and guts - and I'm not particularly squeamish generally anyway. But it just went on for so long. You kept thinking, 'My God, this looks real!'"

8:23 PM - "Our character doesn't believe people can change," David says about the challenge of putting House in a mental institution. "I think [our first episode] we'll get to a point where he wants to change. Whether he can, whether he will is an open question." He later adds, "There's also a very non-artistic answer, which is I like the character and don't really want him to change."

8:24 PM - A fan asks if we'll venture outside the hospital more this season. "Well you'll like the first two hours of this year," David says. "Because we aren't in the hospital at all."

8:26 PM - Would Hugh be up to writing an episode? "No," he answers. "It's way beyond my talents. Absolutely not, absolutely not." This is followed by a love fest between Hugh and David. "This season, I'm going to make out with Hugh," David says. "I'll give you one example," Hugh says about David's awesomeness. "The [story with] Mirror Syndrome. And there's a scene - I'm sorry to go on about this, you probably don't mind too much? - I bring the patient into the operating theatre to meet Dr. Wilson to see how they will respond to each other to see whether he will reflect Wilson's behavior. And the opening line of that scene is, 'Mind if we play through.' Now I promise you, any other show on television and cable - with a capital-K-six-shows-a-year-oh-I'm-so-tired - any other show on television you would have a line - Dr. Wilson meets so-and-so or so-and-so meet Dr. Wilson or just some non-specific introduction between them. The fact that House enters with a completely unnecessary and yet very funny and elegant introduction, I found it absolutely exquisite. It was like seeing a magnificent building and yet noticing that the screws on the doorknob are all lined up. I just thought that's fantastic."

8:30 PM - Someone asks who came up with "everybody lies." The answer: David. "I think the more significant aspect of that is people see the world through their own lenses," he adds. "And that lens is always distorted. And that search for the objective truth is really what the show is all about."

8:31 PM - Hugh on whether he prefers doing comedy or drama: "I feel as if I'm doing [both] now. I'm doing this character and this show unlike any other I've been involved with... I find I have absolutely the best of all possible worlds."

Everybody's favorite grinchy genius is coming back to the Emmy Awards!

House the series was nominated for Best Drama, and the great Hugh Laurie got his fourth straight nomination for Outstanding Drama Actor.

We just caught up with House boss David Shore, and he told us the secret to the show's nomination streak, and he spilled some juicy deets on season six, including what House's time in the loony bin does to the genius's delicate and very important brain...

So what specifically earned House a nomination this year? "I think people were just in the habit of voting for us; it's been four years," said Shore. (Hey, folks, that right there is what we call charming and refreshing honesty!) Still, Shore said, "I wish the crew had gotten a few more individual nominations, but it's really important to all of us that this be recognized as a good show. It's just a thrill to be recognized for that." Nonetheless, if there is a secret to Emmy nominations, he's not telling the likes of us, "Because I'd just do it again next year."

As for the star of the show, Shore credits Laurie with being not just a genius but also damn economical in this tough recession climate: "He's just an incredibly talented actor who frees us up as writers and frees up, I would say, every single department, because whatever you ask that man to do, he delivers, and he delivers it brilliantly. He understands this character as well as anybody does. When Hugh Laurie has a note, you listen, because he gets it. He's as passionate about this show as anybody else is and that makes him a pleasure to work with." We never get tired of people saying nice things about Hugh Laurie. We've cruelly kidnapped him from his home in England, and while we keep him prisoner here in the States, the least we can do is treat him kindly.Hugh Laurie, House Larry Watson/FOX

Le reste de l'article a quelques spoilers.

Spoiler, cliquez ici pour afficher le texte
Now, on with the show: Season six is underway, and Shore told us all about what to expect when the series returns on Sept. 21 to Fox. According to Shore: "We're starting the season with a two-hour House movie directed by [executive producer] Katie Jacobs—it's going to be great. Those two hours take place basically exclusively within the institution."

Will therapy, medication and exposure to fellow crazy people do House any good? "The implementation of that and the success of that is a very open question," said Shore. "House is not turning into a different human being—I say this reassuringly to the audience—he is the same human being, who is perhaps more aggressively trying to make a better life for himself." Will any of that stick? Can House really change for the better? Said Shore, "I think that he's incredibly self-aware, but he has many masters, internally, that he has to serve."

Then, once House makes his way home again, Shore said, "We then go back to more typical episodes—I hate to use that word typical—but we're following up on House getting his license back."

But that transition is not going to be easy. According to Shore, "We want to be honest about this; we want to follow through on what happens to House in an honest way. [The story is what] involvement he does have [in the hospital] and how anxious he is to get back and how we can keep him involved. Certainly, if you've got a genius like that, whether he's licensed or not, you're going to listen to what he has to say." We suspect Dr. Cuddy has something to do with that. The woman cannot get enough of Greg House, even if he did hallucinate and tell.

What did you think about the past season of House? Better than ever or below par? Post your thoughts in the comments!

How does Hugh Laurie remember the ’80s? “I have a dim and distant memory of some absolutely atrocious music,” grumbles the House star. OK, Mr. Crabby Pants, but the ’80s are going to be a major theme on House this season. And the rest of his costars are pretty excited about it.

“Star Wars” fan Jesse Spencer (Chase) met one of his idols when James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) came to shoot his October 5 guest appearance as a murderous African dictator. (OK, the first “Star Wars” came out in the ’70s, but still….) Jones told Jesse, “I looked like his ‘son,’ meaning Luke Skywalker.” There is quite a resemblance to Mark Hamill.

Spoiler, cliquez ici pour afficher le texte
And in a later episode, House will hitch a ride with Drs. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) and Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) to a medical conference in the Adirondacks, where they’ll be invited to take part in an ’80s-themed costume party. “I got to wear hot pants, leg warmers and a Jennifer Beals–style cutoff sweatshirt!” Lisa says of her “Flashdance”-inspired costume. The actress couldn’t stop singing the film’s song, “Maniac,” on set between takes. “I loved that scene with the water splashing all over her.”

As for House’s costume, exec producer David Shore says, “He partakes in his own House way.” Exec producer Katie Jacobs adds, “He claims to have misunderstood that the party’s theme is the 1980s.” (Won’t it be fun seeing Hugh “wig out” at the party with a full head of hair?!) The Adirondacks conference scenes were shot at the Lake Arrowhead resort outside L.A., which Lisa says will set the stage for an “attempted moment” between House and Cuddy. November episodes will find House pursuing Cuddy again.

Though Olivia Wilde (Thirteen) didn’t get to go on the location shoot, she’s headed on her own ’80s adventure. In December 2010, Olivia will be seen on the big screen in “Tron Legacy,” an update of the 1982 sci-fi classic “Tron.” To capture her likeness for an action figure, Olivia underwent full-body 3-D scanning. “I felt like I was in a strange orb abducted by aliens!” says Olivia, who’s unnerved by the thought of sci-fi geeks playing with her miniature likeness. “Carrie Fisher wrote in her book Wishful Drinking that she found a Princess Leia doll in her ex-boyfriend’s drawer with pins stuck in its eyeballs. So the idea of being used as a voodoo doll is very disturbing.”

Katie Jacobs and David Shore on growing an audience, storytelling and a mole on set.LOS ANGELES -- The Vicodin-popping Dr. House has been tormenting doctors and captivating fans for half a decade.Now in its sixth season, the unconventional medical drama House on News Corp. ( NWS - news - people ) network Fox is charming 16.9 million viewers on a weekly basis, up more than 50% from last season, according to The Nielsen Company.The show's executive producers, Katie Jacobs and creator David Shore, spoke to Forbes about luring viewers, breaking rules and dealing with a major morale problem on set.

Forbes: In your sixth season you're still growing your audience. How?Shore: We certainly didn't come out of the gate huge [in the first season] and I think that has sort of helped us. People have come to our show rather than have the show thrust upon them. I think that's helped us in the long run. When something becomes more of a phenomenon than a show, there's a certain pushback or resentment from the audience. Our audience has, for the most part, simply found us and has remained loyal to us. And we try very hard not to let it get tired, so I'd like to think that that helps as well.

If the show were debuting today, would a broadcast network have the same patience to let it find an audience?Jacobs: We weren't doing that poorly. [laughs]Shore: There's this myth around us that we had eight viewers. We weren't doing great, I'll be the first to admit that, but we were doing better than everything else they had.

As a broadcast storyteller, what's the biggest challenge facing you today?Shore: If you're referring to broadcast, as opposed to cable, there's obviously a difference, but I have very rarely felt hamstrung in my storytelling. We obviously can't show nudity, we can't curse and we have to have commercial breaks built into it, but the essentials of the story wouldn't be any different anywhere else.Jacobs: We don't feel particularly restrained or hemmed in by being a network show in terms of the stories we want to do. Every season, we've managed to do a few episodes that really break the format of our show and the network has been incredibly supportive of that. I'd put those up against the shows I love on cable and I'd say they feel equally as innovative. The only thing I see as a pain is having to produce six acts each week. Really, I don't see any other disadvantages; only huge advantages.

What are those huge advantages?Jacobs: 20 million [viewers].Shore: The advantage is broad-casting. We get a very large audience, and there's no point in telling stories unless you're telling it to people.

During the writers' strike, there was a lot of talk about ushering in a new era of cost-conscious television. Any evidence of it?Shore: No, I don't think things happen that dramatically or that quickly. In truth, I think we happen to be living in a very good time for television. There's a lot of really high-quality TV out there. Television will always exist in one form or another--the medium of delivery may change but there will always be a demand for high-quality storytelling and good shows. I feel very confident about that.

As the storytelling platforms or delivery systems proliferate, how has the process been impacted?Shore : It really hasn't. It may one day, but we've been on the Fox television network for six years and our budget has gone up over that time. They haven't asked for different kinds of stories or anything like that. I think we're lucky because we're a hit so they leave us alone and let us tell the stories we want to tell for the most part.Jacobs: Really, a bigger thing that impacts us is the fact that [General Electric ( GE - news - people )-owned] NBC Universal is our studio and we air on Fox.

What sort of challenge does that present?Jacobs : Historically speaking, regimes are made and remembered for the shows that they brought to the air. So we're team players and we understand why we're on at 8 p.m., but we could certainly be doing higher numbers if we weren't on at 8 p.m. Having been on for awhile, what's harder for us is that we don't think we're over and we want the same care and attention [as other shows get.] The fear is that the powers that be at both the studio and network are basically making their brand name by the new shows that they bring on. That's the fear.

Is it the reality?Jacobs : Well, I'm not going to piss off my bosses ...

House turns one of TV's golden rules--a lead has to be likable--on its head. Has that proved challenging?Jacobs : He's not likable? [laughs]Shore : Writers have always wanted to write unlikeable characters and networks have always wanted to put on likable characters. I'll say this: Fox never pushed back on it. I think the reality is that saying you want a likable character is very simple and perhaps cowardly. Write characters that people like to watch. Historically, network television has been rather narrow-minded on that, but I really have to give Fox credit because they never asked us to give him a puppy.

Spoiler, cliquez ici pour afficher le texteThough you were able to keep Dr. Kutner's suicide a secret last season, you weren't able to keep Dr. Cameron's upcoming departure under wraps this season. What impact does a leak like this have?Shore : It's very annoying. It's really important to us that we be able to tell our stories and have our audience enjoy them the way they were intended to be delivered. We work hard to keep story points secret, but the reality is all it takes is one person to screw up that secret.Jacobs : What annoys us is we know exactly how it happened and we know how it continues to happen, we just aren't completely sure of who's doing it. Mike Ausiello, who writes for Entertainment Weekly, has, as he calls it publicly, a "mole" on the set. David and I have gone down to the set and warned them. We've said, 'We all put in long hours and we want to feel comfortable where we work.' It's actually a real problem--a problem with morale as it takes away from the job we're trying to do.

Hugh Laurie's inimitable role on House is doubtless a full-time job, and for the better part of the show's six-year run, it has kept him from doing anything major as far as the big screen is concerned.

But after doing voice work for Valiant, Stuart Little 3, and Monster and Aliens, Laurie may just make that precarious jump from small screen glory to headlining in a feature film, with a much buzzed-about May-December-themed dramatic comedy, reports the Los Angeles Times.

And not only that. Oranges - a dark, dramatic comedy about an older man who has an affair with the daughter of a family friend - may mark the reunion of Laurie, 50, reportedly in talks to play the lead role of the creepy older guy, with Gossip Girl villainess Leighton Meester, who is being considered to play either the female lead or some other role.

Meester has appeared on two episodes of House as Ali, an underage girl who had an obsessive crush on House, so it's not exactly unexplored territory for the two. She came to the clinic with her father who had a cold, and soon started calling the clinic obsessively to talk to him and show up in random places. She also sent him a Fresno calendar so he could count down the six months until she turns 18.

It was revealed later, however, that Ali had a spore in her brain from an earthquake while she was in California.

Mila Kunis, from That 70s Show and now doing voice for Family Guy, is also a top candidate for the other half of the May-December affair. The project, penned by Jay Reiss and Ian Helfer, is still in the works. It has, to its credit, bagged a spot on 2008's Black List of best unproduced works, a list that includes, among others, Inglorious Basterds and the upcoming comedy The Beaver.

After six years in the US, the actor is feeling at home, although he's still English enough to be bemused by his sex-object status

When Hugh Laurie pitches up for our interview carrying a motorcycle helmet, I ask, stupidly, if he has come on his bike. “Well, if I hadn’t,” he replies, “that would be an absurd affectation. Although, in this town, it’s probably not unknown.”

This town being Los Angeles, of course, where Laurie, sometimes uneasily, has been living for the best part of six years. During that time, the Oxford-born, Cambridge-educated actor, once known for playing upper-class English twits, has become, as much to his astonishment as anyone else’s, the biggest television star not just in America, but in the world. Now in its sixth season, House, the medical mystery in which Laurie plays the caustic, misanthropic, witty, cane-brandishing, Vicodin-addicted, Sherlock Holmes-modelled Dr Gregory House, is the most watched drama series on the planet.

Yet, as I look at him, slumped in a wicker chair on the patio of the Chateau Marmont hotel, on Sunset Boulevard, it does seem hard to fathom. Of all the people here this afternoon, including Tom Cruise’s wife, Katie Holmes, who is in the lobby, you would immediately tag Laurie as quite the least at home in such a quintessentially Hollywood setting. More famous than all of them put together, he could hardly look less chic, wearing what I’m sure is the same outfit he has favoured for years: a dark-blue, yellow-tipped polo shirt, black jeans and blue Nikes, his hair tousled, a rough beard, a handsome, appealing face that is starting to show the cares and creases of his 50 years. Through it all peer his sharp, quizzical blue eyes.

To the amusement of some of his friends, Laurie is not just a global superstar now, mobbed and needing protection from bodyguards when he ventures even to places such as Spain; he has been transformed into an international heart-throb and sex symbol. As is soon apparent.

A young, blonde English actress trots over and introduces herself, arching her back and thrusting her breasts forward to impressive effect. She claims she’s from Belsize Park, in northwest London, where Laurie also lives, and tries to draw up a chair to sit with us before we politely discourage her. She is on her first visit to LA, she tells Laurie, and would very much like his advice. Actually, I think what she really wants is for Dr House to put her over his gammy knee and give her a damn good spanking. Which I am sure he would happily do. Laurie, however, is a trifle embarrassed, in a touchingly British kind of way, muttering pleasantries — “I don’t mean to give you the cold shoulder” — but clearly no longer surprised at the weird awkwardness of such encounters.

It’s not the only one. An American man comes over and says he met Laurie a while ago when they were both on their motorbikes in Beverly Hills. “We were supposed to go riding, but you never called,” the man says, possibly joking, probably not. “I’m very insulted you didn’t call me.”

Laurie’s eyebrows arch as the man walks away. “No idea who that was. Not a clue.” After a pause, he adds, no doubt not wishing to appear the stuck-up star: “Having said that, it is flattering that people take an interest of any kind.” Indeed.

As he sips a cappuccino, he tells me that he lived in the Chateau Marmont for the first eight months after he came to LA to play House. “I was so convinced the whole thing was going to fail, I couldn’t contemplate committing to any long-term arrangement. I thought a hotel was a safe bet.” He was also hedging because he was understandably anxious about what it would all mean for him, and his family, if the show did take off. He is married to Jo Green, a theatre administrator; they have three children, who were all at school in England when House started. Having become close friends with Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry and other British acting stalwarts through the Cambridge Footlights — people he continued to work with through the years — Laurie had a successful career and a comfortable life in England. Some of his roles, such as the lovable aristocratic buffoon Bertie Wooster in Jeeves and Wooster, with Stephen Fry playing Jeeves, are British television classics. He had also written a novel, which became a bestseller in France.

So he must have been shocked when House became a hit, and he realised he was going to be out in LA for more than one season. “I still am. There are a lot of days when I feel as if I have been woken from a coma and told six years have gone by, and I have no awareness of it. Is Queen Elizabeth still on the throne? Do we still drive on the left? Do we still have pounds?”

Does he know how many episodes he has done? “Er, no, I don’t. It’s more than 100, because we’re coming to the end of our sixth season. Maybe 120? It’s ridiculous. I have almost been playing House long enough to have qualified to become a doctor.” In fact, 124 episodes of House have been broadcast up to now in America, and Laurie is signed up for two more seasons. He directed his first one a few weeks ago, and has become an executive producer on the show. Now believed to be earning in the region of $400,000 an episode, Laurie has been made wealthy beyond his or anyone’s wildest dreams.

All that money can obscure how numbing and relentless the day-to-day working life of an actor in an American television series can be. Especially for someone such as Laurie, who is in almost every scene, and on whom every episode depends. British tele vision is a doddle by comparison — Blackadder, for example, in which Laurie appeared as various idiots over the years, stretched to just 24 episodes, half an hour each, over four seasons. Most seasons of House have had between 22 and 24 hour-long episodes, each taking nine or 10 days to shoot, in five-day weeks. That’s getting on for 45 or more weeks of the year, with 5am call times and 16-hour days not at all uncommon, especially in the early seasons.

“Those first years, that was tough going,” Laurie admits. “It was hard to keep morale up and keep concentrating, keep forging ahead.” It didn’t help that for the longest time, British newspapers seemed full of reports of Laurie’s misery and his anguish at being separated so much from his family. Grumpy, gloomy Hugh Laurie became a tired newspaper cliché. Has it got easier, I wonder?

“It’s a way of living that, had you described it to me 10 years ago, I would have just found absurd beyond belief, inconceivable. But here we are. Yes, there were plenty of times when it was pretty overwhelming, I think for everybody. Like anybody completely absorbed in a single thing, it’s rather unhealthy. It’s the sort of thing you can do for a certain period of time — in a sort of emergency state — but you can’t live like that indefinitely because you start popping rivets.

“Look, it sounds like I’m moaning,” he adds. “I am constantly aware of my good fortune. But the thing is, almost nothing in this life is as easy as it looks. I did work very, very hard — I do still — but it has been very rewarding, very enjoyable, and I work with a terrific bunch of people. So I feel blessed.”

It has also got easier as his children, who are now 21, 19 and 16, have grown up. After six years, Laurie and his family seem to have settled into a comfortable rhythm. In years past, he says, he would have flown home for four days for the Presidents’ Day holiday, during which we are meeting. “But now my children are scattered to the four winds, I can’t go and see them all anyway.” His wife Jo spends much of her time in LA with him already.

With an unaccustomed day off, Laurie spent the morning boxing. How else do you pass your downtime out here? “Oh, I play the piano. And I play in a band” — the so-called Band from TV, which includes stars from a number of top American television series and does charity gigs. Laurie plays keyboard and sings.

I’m sure he can get glum, and his mind naturally tends towards the philosophical, but Laurie’s default demeanour seems to be a refreshing wry amusement, often about himself. However heavy the burdens may have felt to him in the past, there seems even a breeziness about him now. That is partly because, as House has sustained its success and creative energy — it has won just about every possible award, including four Emmys, while Laurie has scooped two Golden Globes — he says he has become less obsessive. “I used to worry much more about the prospect of failure,” he admits. “That 200 people were going to be out of a job. That shame and disgrace would attach, and I would have my acting uniform stripped from me.”

He says he would have chucked it all in a few seasons ago if he didn’t continue to find Gregory House such an enthralling character, surely one of the most consistently fascinating to have emerged from television. “Yes, I still like him very, very much. I know he has problems, and he is not necessarily a good man. But I realised long ago that one doesn’t only like good people. Sometimes one doesn’t even like good people.”

What does he like most about him? “I suppose I am drawn to people who worry, who are tortured. I find I am always faintly suspicious of happy people. I always think there is something going wrong or missing somewhere. They would probably argue that I am the one with the thing missing, and that may be so. But the fact that he is not happy makes a lot of his mis demeanours more forgivable. If someone is behaving badly, yet remains unhappy and tortured, the bad behaviour is very often its own punishment, so it’s hard to be too upset by it.”

As hard as it may have been at times, Laurie is going to find it even harder to say goodbye to Gregory House when the time comes. I presume he plans to move back to England then. To my surprise, he says he is thinking about staying in LA.

“I can certainly imagine it, in a way I couldn’t have done before,” he says. “It held no appeal for me before, but I do have an affection for the place now. Maybe once the show finishes, I will see it in a different way. For now, I’m in a gilded cage.”